


Hide//Seek

by Mertiya



Series: Story Circle [6]
Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Innistrad, M/M, Prompt Fic, Prompt Fill, possibilities
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-07
Updated: 2016-03-07
Packaged: 2018-05-25 05:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6182890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mertiya/pseuds/Mertiya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Innistrad, outcomes, two different possibilities</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hide

**Author's Note:**

  * For [I_is_turtle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/I_is_turtle/gifts).



> The first half was written for the prompt Zeleren + "just leave me alone" but I'm too sad right now to leave it like that entirely

“Go away.”

“Ral-–”

“I said, GO AWAY.”

Jace leans against the door. “Ral, please, just talk to me.” This is the first time he’s been back on Ravnica for weeks, and somehow he was expecting his friend to be happy to see him. He certainly didn’t expect this response. “What’s wrong?”

Ral stares at him. “You, the Living Guildpact, who decided to up and fucking vanish for months, just waltz back in here as if I’ll be happy to see you. Really.”

A twinge of guilt runs through Jace, but he tries to object. “Ral, it was important. The Multiverse–-”

“So important you couldn’t be bothered telling me where you were going? I don’t think so. Get out. Just–-leave me alone, I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Please-–”

“Leave. Me. ALONE.” The door to the lab swings shut, and Jace is left standing outside with his stomach suddenly turning over inside him. Wonderful. Lavinia is going to wonder why he’s been crying.


	2. Seek

Innistrad is cold and dark and dreary.  Jace has been here for all of two days, and he already knows that he hates it.  He hates the constant rain and wind and dark thunderclouds that loom overhead.  He's carefully not thinking about reasons why those thunderclouds might make him feel oddly lonely.  Oddly homesick. With a sigh, he pays the innkeeper and heads out again, turning up the collar of his dark leather coat against the chilly wind.  Looking for a vampire on a plane that he hates.  What a wonderful day.

The air reeks of ozone as he starts down the muddy road, and at first he thinks it's just the usual smell of Innistrad, carried to extreme.  It's not until he feels the hot-cold pulse on the back of his neck that he recognizes that the eternities have opened, and he whirls round to see an angry lightning mage in a gaudy, oil-stained, slightly singed outfit, striding down the road behind him, where a moment before there was nothing.

Jace stares.  "R-Ral?" he finally manages.  "What in Krokt's name--what are you doing here?"

Ral stares back.  "Mother of rains," he says.  "I was  _looking for you_ , what do you think I was doing?"

"Why?" Jace feels absurdly self-conscious in his stupid oversized greatcoat, and as if in mockery, a light rain starts up, plastering his hair to his head.

Ral is moving--nervous, maybe, or, more likely, that's just Ral.  He can't stay still; Jace knows that.  He's a perpetual motion machine, always swaying or rocking or rushing from one side of the room to the other in a swirl of red-and-blue, one hand fiddling with his hair, his gauntlet.  "Well," Ral drawls.  "I don't know, maybe because the  _Living Guildpact_ , the incarnation of all law and order on the plane of Ravnica,  _mysteriously_ decided to vanish for nearly a month?  Two of the maze-runners are missing, Jace, now is not a good time for you to be waltzing off to other planes."

Taking a deep breath, Jace finds himself stepping backwards in front of the whirlwind of intensity that is Ral Zarek.  "The Multiverse--"

Ral matches him stride for stride, and Ral's strides are bigger than Jace's.  In a moment, he's looming over Jace, who is frustratedly wishing he had just a few extra inches of height.  Maybe he should start wearing high-heeled boots.  " _Fuck_ the multiverse," Ral says, sparks flickering rapidly down his gauntlet.  Suddenly he's reaching for Jace with his naked hand, pulling him forward--and this, Jace wasn't expecting, and he certainly wasn't expecting the sudden feeling of lips, hot and angry against his, Ral's hand insistent on the back of his neck.  Jace's eyes are shut and he can taste ozone and light.  Suddenly the stormclouds aren't looming, aren't lonely, as he finds himself caught inside one, bruised and buffeted but so, so strangely safe, a storm that has been brewing since Lightning Bug halted in disarray.

"Oh," says Jace, weakly.  "Yeah.  You know what?  Fuck the Multiverse."


End file.
